1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to alignment adjusting mechanisms and more particularly, to an alignment adjusting mechanism for a probe card. The present invention also relates to a position adjusting module using the aforesaid alignment adjusting mechanism, and a modularized probing device using the position adjusting module.
2. Description of the Related Art
It is well-known that a device under test (hereinafter referred to as “DUT”), such as a die on a wafer, is indirectly contacted with a testing apparatus through a probe card. By means of signal transmission and analysis, electric characteristics of the DUT can be obtained. The conventional probe card generally comprises fine probe needles arranged in a desired manner that each probe needle corresponds in location to a predetermined contact of the DUT, such that the probe needles can positively transmit testing signals from the testing apparatus to the DUT when contacting the corresponding contacts of the DUT. The electric characteristics of the DUT can be thus measured by running control and analysis procedures of the probe card and the testing apparatus.
FIG. 1A shows a conventional probe card. The conventional probe card is formed by bonding a probe head 10, a space transforming substrate 11 and a circuit board 12 together by soldering. It is found that either probe head 10 or circuit board 12 will be easily damaged due to the processing error or mistake in soldering. The conventional probe card may undergo a desoldering process when it is malfunction and needs to be repaired. However, performing desoldering process will have a great risk of damaging the circuit board 12, the space transforming substrate 11 or the probe head 10.
To solve the problems of the above-mentioned conventional probe card, a probe card formed by combinedly and detachably assembling the probe head, space transforming substrate and the circuit board together is developed in lieu of the probe card assembled by soldering. Such combination-type probe card can be seen in Taiwan Patent Publication Nos. M385788 and M366073. However, because of lack of any alignment adjusting mechanism in these probe cards disclosed in aforesaid patens, the mismatch in alignment resulted from assembly errors can not be adjusted and compensated. In other words, these probe cards disclosed in aforesaid patents may encounter a problem of alignment which needs to be further improved.
FIG. 1B shows a vertical probe card 1 according to another prior art. The vertical probe card 1 is composed of a printed circuit board 10a, a conductive adhesive film 11a electrically connected with the printed circuit board 10a, a lower frame 12a threadedly mounted to the printed circuit board 10a after alignment, a space transformer 13a electrically connected with the conductive adhesive film 11a, an upper frame 14a threadedly mounted to the printed circuit board 10a after alignment, and a probe head 15a having a plurality of vertical probe needles regularly arranged in a matrix manner and electrically connected with the space transformer 13a. When the vertical probe card 1 is assembled, the conductive adhesive film 11a, lower frame 12a, space transformer 13a, upper frame 14a and the probe head 15a are orderly installed on the printed circuit board 10a one after another after they are aligned with respect to each other. Since the parts of this conventional vertical probe card 1 need to be aligned one by one during assembly, the assembly of the conventional vertical probe card 1 is time-consuming This disadvantage may delay delivery or shipment of the resultant products.
Further, because the other parts of the above-mentioned vertical probe card 1 are orderly installed on the printed circuit board 10a one after another, these parts have only alignment relationship without fastening relationship therebetween. When the vertical probe card 1 is dismantled, these parts need to be detached one by one too. This dismantling procedure is also time-consuming Furthermore, when the conventional vertical probe card 1 is badly in need of repair, because the user of test plant can not repair the vertical probe card 1 by himself in practice, the conventional vertical probe card 1 needs to be returned to the supplier for repair. This is time-consuming too. In addition, printed circuit boards 10 of same specification may not be commonly used in the conventional vertical probe cards 1 because the user in test plant can not assemble or dismantle the vertical probe card 1 by himself. In other words, the conventional vertical probe card 1 has the disadvantages of consuming time in assembling and disassembling, inconvenience in dismantling and replacing parts, and difficulty in repair.
In light of above, it is needed to develop an alignment adjusting mechanism adapted for being used in a probe card, a position adjusting module using the aforesaid alignment adjusting mechanism, and a modularized probing device to improve the disadvantages of the conventional probe cards mentioned above.